The Holly Grows Thin Here
by SillverMedal
Summary: Set during the Great Depression. It's Christmas, but with no money how will Cody and Zack give their mother a present to remember? Short and sweet.


**A/N**: I've been wanting to do this for a while. Hope you enjoy this little story! And Happy Holidays to all!

**Disclaimer**: I do not own the _Suite Life of Zack and Cody_.**

* * *

**

**The Holly Grows Thin Here**

_Sillver Medal

* * *

_

_Ping. Ping. Ping._

It had been a hard year.

In a few weeks 1931 would turn into 1932, and though it would seem hopeful to wish for what had once been, such hope ran expensive. And they were nearly out of whatever money they had once had.

Boston was a dying city; a saddened city. A booming city it had once been; full of opportunities and bright futures. Full of young men and women striving to go to college, to pave a future. It had once been a city of dreams.

But those dreams were dead now.

They'd lost their promise. Because one had to pay to go to school, to eat and to drink, to live comfortably. And no one had any money.

Zachary Martin was a strapping boy of fifteen, or at least, he had been at one time. Once, he'd worn his old newsboy cap with dignity and pride and had held his head of straw-colored thick hair high in the air. Looking the defiant world in the eye as if daring it to challenge him.

But it had challenged him, and, as one would note if they were to see him as he was now, it had beaten him, too. His still wore his cap, but it was dusty now and the bright checked grey had faded to a dull color that matched the dirty streets. His hair, too, was filthy and matted. Now he sat on a street corner, idly bouncing a rubber ball against a street lamp as though it held all the frustrations of his world.

_Ping. Ping. Ping._

A man he knew (or at least, _thought_ he knew) was selling something that might have been bananas at one point. His voice rang out over the street, but none came to his little stand. They gave him looks of sympathy and apologetically shrugged, but such gestures of understanding paid no pennies.

And it was getting colder, too. The snow already covered the city in a thick blanket of muddy ice, and more was spitting out from ugly dark clouds that turned the sun's warmth into a mere sliver of remembrance.

"Spot a penny, wontchu?"

Zack caught the ball in surprise and snapped his head up to look at a little kid. The boy's face was so dirty it appeared black and his clothes were ripped horribly. Zack sighed and shook his head.

"Nah, sorry, kid," he said. The child's face fell and he trudged away, hands deep in his pockets. At one time Zack had been annoyed by such street urchins; they'd been beneath him; mindless orphans who would amount to nothing.

But then the stock market had crashed and Hoover had insulted the farmers and the banks had lost all there money and his dad's job as a construction worker suddenly paid a third of what salary he'd once had.

The snow started to fall harder and a bitter wind whipped through the streets. The crowd dispersed slightly, ducking into the few stores that remained open. Zack stood and gripped his little ball in a fist as he hurried back to the old tenement building he called home.

When he got there he made his way up the stairs to the old familiar door and opened it. They'd sold the lock long ago for money. As he entered the small apartment his mother looked up from the stove.

"Took ya long enough," she said strictly. Zack shrugged and sank down at the kitchen table. It was so old they'd given up on destroying the cobwebs and now ate in the company of a dozen tiny spiders. "Take off your hat before sittin' at the table!"

Zack scowled. "Ma, this is my favorite thing in this entire world," he said earnestly. "What if I was to lose it, huh? You know how _devastated_ I'd be-,"

"-Did ya get what I need ya to get?" the woman seemed to ignore his plea and he blinked as she snapped out a question.

After a moment he shook his head. "Sorry, ma," he said dully. "Got to the store and there was a 'closed' sign on it. Imagine that, yeah? Old Dennis Grippley shuttin' down his store. Why, that place's been open since b'fore I was born!"

His mother tut-tutted at the stove. "It's a shame, is what it is." she said with an exasperated sigh. "Folks all over Boston out of work! More people standing in line to get bread then not, I'd betcha."

"S'true, yeah?" Zack shook his head and whistled. "And you thought I's was crazy for droppin' out a'school two years ago! One last bill to pay for ya, ma."

"Mmm, and broke your brother's heart, that did,"

Zack frowned.

"I told 'im he could keep goin'! Alls I said was that I was gonna try to get work in a shop somewhere. Don't need no degree to make money, so why spend it?"

His mother stirred the pot briefly on the stove before leaving it in the stew and throwing down a rag on the table. "High school education's free, Zach'ry. Paid by the government and everything. And look at all these folks out of work! Betcha none of them got degrees. The only one's makin' money are the doctors and accountants."

Zack grunted. "This'll all blow over eventually," he said. "Just you wait."

At that moment the door swung open and someone who looked near identical to Zack hurried in. He closed the door quickly, cheeks red and panting. Snow was slowly melting on his thin jacket and his blonde hair was tousled.

"We're 'bout to get the blizzard a' the century out there," he said breathlessly.

"Hurry and warm up by the stove before you get pneumonia!" his mother said sternly, leading him over to it and taking off his jacket for him. "I told you not to go all the way to the library in this weather."

The second son smiled at her rather shyly. "That you did, ma," he agreed.

"Snow's getting worse, then?" Zack asked his brother as the boy warmed his hands above the steaming pot of stew.

He nodded. "It's covering the streets now," he said. "Automobiles can't get through in some parts on account of the ice being too dangerous."

His mother scowled. "Maybe the folks driving them will finally know what it's like to not have one," she said cynically. "Serves them right, taking whatever money there's left in the city. They oughtta be ashamed a' themselves!"

"And at Christmas, too!" Zack agreed heartily, slamming his fist down on the table. His rubber ball (which he said a few inches from his hand) rolled off and onto the ground, making its way across the kitchen and into the tiny sitting room.

"Speaking a' Christmas," said the second son thoughtfully, pulling away from the stove and sitting across from his brother. "What're your plans?"

"What d'ya mean what're my plans!" Zack demanded, still fired up about the rich people at the top living the high life while hard workers like themselves were stuck pinching pennies. "I don't got anyway, that's what." he finished dramatically.

His brother sighed softly. "You mean you don't _have_ any," he corrected.

Zack glared at him. "Darn it, Cody," he said, careful not to cuss in front of their mother. "You talk like that much more and we're gonna have to pay for another room to fit your giant head."

Cody swatted at him and Zack kicked at him under the table. It was exceedingly immature and disastrously feminine, but fighting was not permitted in the apartment. Their mother had dinner to dangle over their heads if they were to protest against her rules.

"Your father might be delayed 'cuz a' this storm," the mother said slowly as she resumed her fussing over the pot. "We should eat this before it gets cold."

They turned off the stove every night at eight to conserve coal, but as a result had to suffer through an extra hour of chill during the cold winter months.

The stew, though they'd eaten the same thing four weeks straight, tasted fine to them. All food is appreciated by hungry mouths.

* * *

"'Lo, George," said Zack a day later. He was out looking for a present for his mother. He and his brother had decided to skip giving each other something and their father had specifically stated that he wanted nothing but a roof over his head for the holidays. Problem was, everyone else might have gotten poorer, but prices hadn't changed any and Zack had no money.

His friend was a boy his age everyone just called George; he'd come over from Germany a few years back and had some name that sounded like _Gor-hoof_, but Boston folks didn't much care to learn a different language. George was a fine name.

"Heya, Zack," said George. The two began walking down the crowded street. They both tried valiantly to ignore the painfully long line outside of the soup kitchen. Neither, miraculously, came from families who had to resort to charity.

Yet.

"Whatchu doing out today?" It was freezing and the bitter wind was loud, whipping hats and skirts like a child with a puppet. Zack kept one hand firmly atop his own prized cap.

George shrugged. "Ah, ya know. Trying to see if some angel's gonna hire me."

Zack snorted. "God 'imself couldn't find you a job right now," he said acrimoniously. "Economy's so bad right now…Don't know how it got this way, but we's all gonna celebrate the holidays on the street next year this time."

"Way to be positive there, Zacky-boy," George quipped as they neared an empty department store. Zack smirked at his friend before pausing in front of the old window display. Jazz was playing inside and the owner was advertising lower prices. Zack didn't really believed the bolded claim, but he decided to go in anyway.

George didn't follow and Zack figured his friend had gone out to try and rob some unsuspecting automobile owner. It was getting to be a popular pastime in this part of Boston.

A man looked up from behind a desk in the back of the room when Zack entered. "You got money to pay?" he asked gruffly.

Zack blinked. "Uh," he thought it over. "If you got stuff to buy," he finally lied. The man nodded and gestured to the shelves.

Zack roamed the aisles, finding nothing he would want to buy even if he _did_ have the money. His mother deserved something better…Something special…

Something he was not going to find in this store.

On his way out, the man behind the counter shouted at him. "Ah, thanks fer nothin'!" he cried angrily. "Give an old man false hope…Hooligan!"

Zack closed the door in a hurry and continued walking through the city. After a while he stopped looking in the stores; the things that looked good were too expensive, and the stuff he _could_ consider to be in his dismally miniscule price range was nothing to give a guy's _mother_ for _Christmas_.

When the sun started to set and the wind began to pick up even more he headed home, and that night when his parents talked in low voices over black coffee in the kitchen he quietly conversed with his brother in their tiny bedroom.

"I found this pair of gloves, see," said Cody as he fiddled with a lose string on their single blanket. "But the store owner wouldn't trade with me."

Zack snorted and recalled what had happened in the first store he'd tried. "…Practically took m'head off when I didn't buy nothin'."

"_Anything_," Cody corrected meticulously. Zack scowled.

"I don't know how we're gonna get her somethin', though, honestly. Nothin' out there to buy we can afford, and the stuff we can's stuff nobody'd want anyway."

Cody sighed deeply. "There's got to be something…" he said slowly.

Zack took his hat off and began to fiddle with it, tossing it up and catching it. When he tried with that he pressed it back down upon his head and tossed his rubber ball from hand to hand deftly.

"Dang but aren't my feet cold," said Cody after a while. Zack shivered in agreement as he curled up tighter.

It wasn't until Cody had decided to go to bed that the idea came to Zack. And as he crawled into the bunk directly above his brother's he bit his lip as he thought it over. Outside the wind howled and the drunks joined the calamity with their strained voices and underprivileged hearts.

* * *

Christmas morning came like any other morning, except that for the first time in fifteen years neither son received any gifts. They'd received peppermint sticks from their aunt in the mail, true, and their parents had given them each a penny, but it was a different Christmas and they all knew it.

They'd just finished a breakfast of thinly sliced bread and coffee when Zack grinned slightly and pulled out a newspaper-wrapped parcel tied with twine.

Cody frowned at him in confusion; he'd been sitting with a horribly sincere apologetic look on his face all through breakfast. As far as he knew he'd found nothing to give his mother for Christmas.

"What's this?" his father insisted when he laid eyes on it.

"It's a gift," said Zack rather smugly. "For mom." When his mother looked at him in quiet shock he grinned widely. "It's for you mom; for Christmas."

"But, Zachary," she said breathlessly, taking it in her fingers and looking at it in awe. "However did you get the money-,"

"Yeah, son," said his father sharply. He hadn't managed to provide a gift for his wife this year, save a small piece of metal he'd polished and turned into a pendant. "You didn't steal nothin', I hope-,"

"-Kurt!" the boy's mother said in gentle reprimand. "Of course he didn't."

Zack shook his head, still grinning. "I didn't!" he clarified. "Just open it, ma."

She did, with fingers shaking slightly and eyes wide. When she finally pulled the present away from the newspaper and saw what it was, tears sprung to her eyes.

"Zack…" she started weakly.

Cody nodded slowly when he saw the gift and smiled at his brother. His father grunted but seemed to approve as he leaned back with his steaming coffee.

But Zack was watching only his mother. "They're socks, mom," he said, voice thick with emotion. "Now your feet won't get cold at night. Now they won't get cold at all," he worked his rubber ball around in his hands as he spoke.

"Zack-I-I can't-these-these are wonderful!" his mother exclaimed, pulling him into a hug. She kissed the top of his head emotionally and he didn't pull away. She was crying, thought smiling wider than he'd seen her beam in years.

As they finished up the small festivities Cody elbowed his brother. "Hey," he said in good nature. "How'd you get the money for that?"

Zack shrugged. "I had a little help from Mrs. Debord down the hall is all."

But Cody stopped to stare at him, realization dawning on his face. "Your hat," he said slowly, thoughtfully. "Zack-where's your hat?"

Zack smiled slightly and turned away to retrieve his rubber ball which had fallen to the floor. When he straightened again he clasped a hand on his brother's shoulder before leaving the apartment. "Merry Christmas, Cody," he said softly.

As the door closed behind him Cody shook his head slowly and smiled slightly to himself. "Yeah," he said numbly as Zack's footsteps faded away to silence. "Merry Christmas," he said.

* * *

**The End**

**

* * *

**

_I would consider a nice review a sufficient holiday gift ;)_.


End file.
